


Sugarcidal Maniac

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Baby Noctis Lucis Caelum, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Good Parent Regis Lucis Caelum, Halloween, Humor, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27494962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Twas a grave and terrible injustice Regis must remedy on this night. There was a daemon loose in the Citadel, and should he fail to stop it, all of his candy would be lost.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum & Regis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 17
Kudos: 63





	Sugarcidal Maniac

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glaivenoct](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glaivenoct/gifts).



> A [prompt fill](https://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/634429763458564096/halloween-prompt-2-noct-papa-regis-d) for [glaivenoct.](https://glaivenoct.tumblr.com/)

“Who ate all my candy?!!”

The King’s voice thundered through the suite, a counterfeit outrage made to match the mundanity of the crime. It was a grisly scene: skins of foil wrappers lay shredded across the carpet, with dark stains clotting the velvet in a sticky trail which betrayed the retreat of the culprit. Regis strode, grimly, over the carnage, in hot pursuit of the fugitive.

This terrible massacre must be avenged. He must deliver justice swiftly and without mercy. By his honor as King and by the power bestowed upon him by the Crown City of Insomnia, he would bring this malicious villain to rights. He could hear the daemonic little creature’s laughter, somewhere in the room. The devious giggling echoed around the expansive chamber, making it difficult to pinpoint where exactly his felon was hiding.

“Alright now, turn yourself in!” Regis barked with the smallest bit of authority behind the order, adding some weight to the severity of this most brutal of atrocities. “There’s nowhere to run, Noctis.”

The gleeful tittering stifled off at the seriousness with which Regis called him by name. The gravity of what he’d done dropped down a sudden doom over the royal apartments, plunging the room into silence. Regis stalked along the perimeter, investigating drafty curtains and the cracked open wardrobe doors in search of the nefarious runaway.

The cessation of his laughter only bought Noctis a few moments before his sugar-rush squirming gave him away again. Regis pretended not to notice the creaking from behind the closet door, nor the shadow skittering back and forth beneath the crease where the wood met the floor. Long had it been since Regis feared monsters in his closet, but right now? He was shaking in his boots.

Such destruction had been wrong in the little beastie’s wake, a gooey, gory mess of nougat and caramel remains left behind in the wake of slaking his ravenous appetite. If Regis wasn’t careful, the tiny butcher might just return to the scene of the crime and claim another victim. Not on this King’s watch! Not again! He wasn’t about to lose another one!

“You’ve committed a serious crime, Noct,” Regis intoned, with grave foreboding. “You’ll have to pay a very serious price to match.”

He heard his traitorous son snicker and snort, a clumsy attempt to keep quiet so he didn’t give away his position. But it was too late for the devious little gremlin. The King was narrowing in on his hidden lair, justice marching stolidly in his footsteps.

He toyed with his pursuant for a bit longer, checking everywhere except the closet with increasingly dramatized frustration. In a way, Regis almost hoped the thieving little convict might escape while he distracted himself with false hiding places. He was enjoying the chase more than he knew he’d enjoy doling out the retribution he’d promised on behalf of his brutalized candy pile.

Alas, Regis could only keep up the charade for so long. While the royal chambers were vast, there were only so many places to hide – and Noctis would _not_ forgive him should he intuit Regis was making it too easy for him. His son did not appreciate being coddled, which Regis grew prouder of – and more amused by – every single day that the six-year-old pouted over having been handed victories he didn’t earn.

So, Regis approached the closet, with its rollicking shadows skimming the edges as the concealed candy killer paced the confines of his prison. Noctis would fight for his escape, Regis could tell by the frenetic energy frisking across the floorboards. They’d run this race many holidays over – Noctis being a repeat offender for trespassed candy caches. He may not have wanted Regis to hand him his freedom, but he’d be sure to challenge him for it. Noctis loved the chase as much as Regis did. Couldn’t imagine where he got that from.

Regis finally brought himself before the closet door, bracing himself for whatever treachery the tiny outlaw was planning for his escape.

“This is your last chance to surrender, Noctis,” Regis warned in a low voice, hands on the doorknob. “Come quietly now…”

Regis flung open the door, hoping to catch Noct by surprise, but the prince was prepared for it. The diminutive derelict seized on his advantage in size to steal beneath Regis’s legs where they bracketed the doorway. A stance Regis had hoped to block his means of retreat had betrayed him his triumph. Regis made a noise of abject affront, stumbling around to resume chase.

He was far too slow, however, because when he turned, the treacherous monarch-to-be had Regis’s one weakness fisted in his pint-sized paw. Noctis stood over the sack of candy, a grim white specter in his moogle-themed onesie. From the heap the king had abandoned in his pursuit, the malevolent moogle snatched the cellophane packaging of a candied ring. The “gem” was big and red, melded to a cheap plastic band for kids to adorn their hands, lick like lollipops, and pretend they were Kings of Lucis for the night.

Regis immediately collapsed to his knees, extending an arm in supplication as Noctis released the treasure from its sheath.

“By the Six, no!” Regis exclaimed, eyes blown wide in terror. “You don’t know the power in that which you wield!”

“I know that once I wear this ring, _I_ shall be King of Lucis!” Noctis said between peals of maniacal laughter. “Then no one can stop me from having all the candy I want!”

Noctis held the ring over his finger, hovering just before his fingertip. Regis continued to entreat with him, dragging himself pitifully across the carpet to reach him in time. Reminders of Noct’s cruelty clung to Regis’s pant leg – the launderer would _not_ be happy with him for crawling through caramel. He mustn’t let this miniature maniac take control of the Ring, lest all the candy in Lucis suffer the same genocide as he witnessed tonight.

But Regis was too weak, and Noct’s craving too strong, and he couldn’t stop him from slipping the ring onto his sugar-stained finger. Regis made a choked sound, bringing his hand to his chest. He wobbled for a moment, gasping in theatrical despair as his power failed him.

“Aahh,” he wheezed, rolling onto his back. “Magic waning… Light fading… The kingdom is lost… Blegh…”

He stretched his arm skywards in one last valiant plea to the gods in their Astral Realm to have mercy on Lucis… And then, he expired, arms falling loosely at his sides as the last of his strength abandoned him. The murderous moogle shimmied solemnly over to the body of the King, lightly placing a fuzzy foot upon his unmoving chest.

“The King is slain!” Noctis announced to the empty room. “Now comes the Reign of the Moogle-King! Mwuahaha!”

While the diabolical despot proclaimed his victory, with the candy ring gleaming red with the melted blood of its fallen brethren, suddenly, a strange sensation compelled Regis’s dead limbs into moving.

“You forget, my foolish son,” he whispered. “That once a King of Lucis is slain, he joins the ranks of the Lucii. Now, I’m more powerful than ever!”

Regis swiftly resurrected himself, grabbing the tiny tyrant around the waist and rolling him across the carpet in a terrible tickle fight of revenge! Noct’s horrid squeals of agonized delight bounced throughout the suite. He tried to squirm away, but now that Regis was no longer bound by a corporeal form, there was little the fallen prince could do to shake him.

“You bear the Ring of the Lucii,” Regis told Noctis in a ghostly drawl. “Therefore, you bear my soul for all eternity. Even in death, I shall follow you to the ends of Eos!”

“Noooo!” Noctis wailed in defeat, then surrendered to his ticklish fate.

Someone had _the audacity_ to interrupt them, right in the middle of Regis’s well-fought deliverance. A firm knock came at the door – one knock only, _quite_ adamant in its delivery, only announcing itself once before entering – which could only mean it was Cor. Regis was laying on the floor where he’d been slain, his spirit clutching Noctis to his chest in a purgatory of laughter for his crimes against the candy piles of Lucis.

“Er, Your Majesty,” Cor cleared his throat. “Your presence is requested in the throne room.”

“You’ll have to offer my apologies, Marshall,” Regis sighed, forlornly. “For you see, I am quite dead, and quite incapable of dragging my desiccated corpse out to appease the people. I think they’d find it quite upsetting, don’t you, Noct?”

“The Undead King of Lucis!” Noctis crowned him, with all of the eerie elation appropriate for the season.

Cor sighed, through his nose, terse and unamused (perhaps a little amused). “If you could just reanimate yourself for one moment…”

“Nope!” Regis declared. “I shan’t! It’s Hallowtide.”

He looked upon the flushed face of his son, cheeks smeared in chocolate stains and bouncing with laughter upon his chest. Yes, he was afraid he was quite dead and long gone. Because this little monster had clawed the very heart from the King’s chest the day he was born.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I somehow canonized Ring-Pops in the universe of Final Fantasy. And a Doctor Who reference to boot.


End file.
